Kids and Leaves

The kids on the street got together to jump in some leaves.

They then proceeded to Pete and Sam's trampoline for some more serious leaf action.

Sam Halloween Party

Sam and Dianna enjoyed the Halloween party at Sam's school.

Sam AR Tests

Here is Sam reading Captain Underpants and the Perilous Plot of Professor Poopypants.  He has started going in to Pete's class at school and taking Accelerated Reader (AR) tests.  This was the first book that he was tested on.  He is currently at the 4th grade reading level.

Tortoise

Sam, Pete, and cousin Shayna had fun playing with a very old and large tortoise at Pumpkinville.  Unfortunately, soon after these pictures were taken, the tortoise stepped on Pete's foot.

Here are this years pictures of Pete and Sam:

And here are pictures of Pete and Sam Dad painted on his mini-pumpkin from the Fall Festival:

Halloween 2008

Pictured above are Pete, Christopher, and Sam before they headed out for trick-or-treating.  Pete and Christopher are Dementors.

And below is the street Halloween "party" getting set up.  This seems to expand every year.  This year we had a fire, tables, and chairs.  The kids coming down the street just come to the middle and grab candy out of the bowls. 

After returning home, everyone headed into the neighbors' garage for some candy-swapping.

Sam's Soccer Trophy and Medal

Sam likes his trophy and medal that he got for playing soccer.  The trophy has a little soccer ball that spins around.  Although at times Sam did not want to play major portions of his games, he did have a better showing in the last game.  He played almost all of the last game ("tournament" game), even though it was pretty cold and they had a limited number of subs who showed up for the late afternoon game.  The picture was taken at Pete's basketball practice.  It was a long day, with a total of 4 soccer tournament games and then a basketball practice.

Husky Club

The Husky Club is the list of kids in Pete's school who are able to do 6 or more pull-ups.  The names are posted  on the wall in the gym.  Last year Pete did 5 pull-ups, and he had to wait a year for another chance.  This year he made it into the Husky Club.

Family Visit

Pete and Sam had an exciting weekend before Halloween, when Grandma and Grandpa came to visit, as well as Aunt Robin and cousins Shayna and Skyler.

Above is a picture from Pumpkinville on Sunday.  The weather was great, after a rainy day on Saturday.

If you like to play Where's Waldo, you can also look for Mom in the picture.

Halloween Woods

Pete and Sam went this year to the new Halloween Woods attraction at Algonkian Park in Sterling.  They were joined by Mom, Dad, Aunt Robin, Shayna, and Skyler.  The event features a walk through the woods at night, with various scary things along the way.  Scary things include guys jumping out with chain saws, guys jumping out with bloody appendages, guys jumping out wearing Redskins apparel, howling noises, etc.

We quickly discovered that Sam was not particularly enthralled with this concept.  Also, Pete and Shayna  were not much happier about it.  Skyler, on the other hand, was completely unaffected.  Before the group even made it completely through the entrance, Sam was not coping well.  Sam notified Dad that he would have to carry Sam through the entire trail.

Prior to the walk, the guide told the children that if they got too scared at any point, they could call out the code word ("Snoopy") and the scary creatures would back away.  Not long into the hike, they were constantly calling out "Snoopy" as they walked down the path.  Overall, this worked about 1/2 the time.  One glaring example of when this did NOT work was when a guy with an axe jumped out, the group yelled "SNOOPY", and the guy whispered "Snoopy's dead, I killed him."

Fortunately, a samaritan warned us not to take Sam into the tunnel at the end of the hike.  Shayna joined Sam on the detour.  This was a good decision, as the narrow tunnel ended with some chain saws and screaming.

Overall, it was a fun event but Pete and Sam will probably NOT be going back next year.

Village Fest 2008

Everyone had a good time this year at Village Fest.  This is the local festival held in September at the Ashburn Pavillion.

We decided that Sam was tall enough to ride the Paratrooper with Pete.  This was fun for Sam, not as much fun for Mom and Dad to watch as he slid around.  The most fun was at the end when it started raining harder and harder, until they finally had to close down the few rides that remained open.  But not before everyone did the swings together one last time.

Other rides included the carousel, rock wall, ferris wheel, Madhouse, elephants, and something that spun Pete around upside down.

Pete went back again the next day with Coby.

Sam Field Trip

Sam's pre-school class at Celebration had a field trip last week to Temple Hall Farm Park, which is one of the 718 local pumpkin patches that is open in October.

The names of his classmates in the picture (l-r) are:

Justin

Katie

Jacqueline

Hannah

Dianna

Josh

Jackson

Devon

Sam

Luke

Nathan

Eric

Lorenzo

Dad's Office

Pete, Sam, and Mom met Dad for a picnic on Columbus Day at the playground near his office.  This marked their first picnic on playground equipment, as they laid the blanket down in an open area at the top of some steps near the slides.

They then proceeded to Dad's office for a brief soccer game in an empty office, and some cookies from the vending machine.

Fall Campout

Pete and Sam had fun at the cub scouts fall campout last weekend in Boyce, Va.  Activities they participated in included kickball, 2 nature hikes, Scout's Own, bonfire skits and sing-alongs, playing in "the pit" (which they cited as the best activity), and survival skills training.

Clementine

Pete: Dad, what song are you whistling?

Dad: It's called Clementine. It's about a guy who works in a cave, and his daughter drowns and he never sees her again.

Pete: Cool!

Family Crest

Sam's homework assignment last week was to create a family crest with some of his favorite things.

Unfortunately, the orange pencil does not stand out too well.  But at least you can see that his favorite food is pizza, and his favorite family activity is Village Fest.

New Foods

Sam tried several new foods this week:

• Apple (pictured)
  
• Strawberry bagel
  
• Yogurt thing at Wendy's
  

This brings the total number of foods he will eat to about 6.

Double Rainbow

This is one of those pictures where there is a lot going on.

Bright sunshine

Pouring Rain

Double Rainbow

Mom retrieving skateboard

Lots of wet kids

Truck just washed (see bucket)

Sam's Latest MP3s

Here is Sam listening to some MP3s in his new booster seat in the gold car.

Conveniently, Sam and Pete both play soccer 9:30 on Saturday mornings at Cedar Lane.  Sam is enjoying some songs after his game, while waiting for Pete to finish.

These are the latest new songs on Sam's MP3 player:

Beast And The Harlot - Avenged Sevenfold

Hangar 18 - Megadeth

The Light That Blinds - Shadows Fall

Handlebars - Flobots

Cherry Pie - Warrant

Heart Shaped Box - Nirvana

Monkey Wrench - Foo Fighters

Woman - Wolfmother

Sweet Child O'Mine - Guns 'n Roses

YYZ - Rush

Tattooed_Love_Boys - The Pretenders

Note: All of the above songs, except one, have something in common.

Skate Jumps

Pete has been getting bolder with his roller blade jumps from ramp to curb.

On a somewhat-related note, here is one of our recent attempts at a bandage.

Great Expectations

Sam:  Where are we going to dinner?

Dad:  Tonight we are going to Dairy Queen for dinner.

Sam:  That's the best dinner I ever had!

Sandbox Battles

On August 15th, Pete, Sam, and Dad were bored so they decided to wage some sand battles with all of the old action figures in their collection.

Lo and behold, one of the presents Pete got the next day for his birthday was a sandbox battle set with catapults, weapons, castles, cannons, etc.  After the party, some of the guests stayed to play with it.  Pete and Sam have also played a few times since then.

Basement Dodgeball

Sam: Can Mason, Luke, Corey, and Pickle come into our basement to play dodgeball?

Mom: No.

Training Wheels

Congrats to Sam on riding his bike without training wheels as of 9/23/08.

* Bike not pictured

** Photo taken by Sam

Childproof Caps

For our readers who may be doing research on what age children can open child-proof caps on medicine bottles, we don't know the exact answer but we can report that it is less than 8 years, 1 month.

New Tree

This past weekend we decided to put in a new tree to help screen the back side of the house.

Dad and Sam went to get the tree.  Sam helped pick it out, and got to sit with the tree on the ride home from the nursery.

You can see that Pete helped Dad finish digging the hole.

Then Pete and Sam checked to make sure the hole was deep enough.

Next time you come to visit, you will have to go around back and check out the new tree.  Hopefully Pete and Sam will remember to walk around the tree when we walk to IHOP, Fuddruckers, Potbelly's, KFC, or Bertucci's.

"Fun" Fest

It's late September, so every group of two or more stores in America will be having a "Fun Fest" sometime in the next month.  Among the most pathetic of these is the one we attended on Saturday at the Ashburn Town Square.  We stopped there after a morning of soccer, practicing for Pete's Punt/Pass/Kick competition, getting a guitar for Pete at the Broadlands community yards sale, and stopping for a visit at Ben's house.

Pete and Sam began the Fun Fest with the "hay ride", which was two horses pulling a trailer across the parking lot.  Then they decorated the pumpkins shown above.  We watched a karate demonstration, grabbed half a bagel from a basket in front of the bagel shop, and that was about it for the Fun Fest.  See you in '09!

Mystery Bruises

You can usually tell how much Pete has been skateboarding or roller-blading by looking at the cuts and bruises on his legs.  Part of the problem seems to be that the neighborhood kids come up with ideas for tricks, then go looking for Pete to see if he will try them.  

Hopefully he can get healed up over the winter.

Block Party

It seems that block parties spring up on our street on various days throughout the summer.  Here is one that took place on Labor Day weekend.  It was a bit of a "last hurrah" before school started up again.  Pete and Sam take advantage of the opportunity to run around all night like street urchins.  Pictured above is Sam wandering around at 10:00pm with no shoes, a bicycle helmet, and some sort of glow stick.

Sam's Family

Here is a craft Sam brought home one day from pre-school entitled "Sam's Family":

It looks pretty accurate. Note that Dad and Sam are smiling, Pete is mad, and Mom is clearly annoyed that everyone has taken off their shoes without putting them away in their cubby.

No Idea

Sometimes you find a mystery picture on the camera and you have no idea where it came from.

First Day of Third Grade

Pete is now off to third grade.

You can make up your own mind how happy he is to be back in school.

Cannibalism

Pete: What does it mean if an animal is a cannibal?

Dad: It eats other animals of the same species

Pete: I'm going to become a cannibal, eat Sam, and then change back

New Ramps

We bought 4 ramps and 2 rails from Taylor and Devon, who live 3 houses over on the cul-de-sac.  As you can see, Pete has been attacking his new ramps and rails with reckless abandon, on his bike, blades, and skateboard.

They say that sometimes the best pictures are captured with the least preparation, and the second picture above was such an occasion.  Just saw Pete heading toward the ramp and snapped the shot.  The timing worked out, and we now have what may be the best picture of Pete to date.

Next week we will post a picture of the cuts and bruises on Pete's legs.  (No, really, we have one)

Pete's Olympic Party - The Awards

Mom made some medals out of cookies, foil, and ribbon:

Everyone got a medal during the awards ceremony:

And they also got to take home a trophy:

Pete's Olympic Party - The Events

Each attendee at Pete's party got to take home a card detailing their performance in each of the 6 events. Here is Sam's card:

Here is Pete throwing the discus:

Here is Pickle getting ready to throw the javelin:

There was some time left over, so everyone threw tennis balls into the trampoline to try to get them in a bucket. This was not an official event.